![]() "It's always preferable to be seen blurred, rather than precisely." "We would always prefer to be photographed at the lowest resolution possible", said Amnon Harari, head of space programmes at Israel's Defence Ministry last year, reported by Reuters. The KBA limited image quality so that an object the size of a car was just about visible as a highly blurred image, but anything smaller would be very difficult to identify. The Kyl-Bingaman Amendment (KBA) had been introduced in 1997 to address Israeli security concerns.Īlthough the ruling only referred to Israel, it was also applied the restriction to images of the Palestinian territories. Until last year, the US government restricted the quality of satellite images that American companies were permitted to provide on a commercial basis. Google says its aim is to " keep densely populated places refreshed on a regular basis" but this hasn't been the case with Gaza. I zoomed in on some random rural area of Syria and it has had 20+ images taken since that time, in very high resolution," tweeted Aric Toler, a journalist for Bellingcat. "The most recent Google Earth image is from 2016 and looks like trash. However, on Google Earth, the most widely used image platform, the most recent imagery for Gaza is of low resolution and therefore blurry. "The fact that we don't get high-resolution satellite images from Israel and Palestinian territories sets us back," says Samir, an open-source investigator. In the latest Middle East confrontation, investigators are looking to corroborate the locations of missile fire and targeted buildings in Gaza and Israel, using satellites. ![]() It has become a vital element in the reporting of conflict, but there are also concerns the availability of detailed images can compromise security. Google Google Earth image of Gaza on the left, and on the right the most recently available image of Pyongyang, North Korea.
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